Travel snacks and an easy Chocolate-Oat Cereal Bar recipe

I‘m looking at suitcase on the floor, overflowing with light and airy garments with flower prints on them, white sandals, and a stack of Danny’s T-shirts. Just above, a window looks out on to our snowbound backyard, frosted white like a slicked sheet cake. Something does not quite compute.

BUT. Our flights are booked and an enormous villa is rented on a quiet beach near a remote fishing town on Mexico’s West Coast. Yes, we’re headed South! My three siblings and I are finally pulling off a tropical getaway that we’ve only been talking about for, oh, five or six years. Together with our families, we’re flying into Mexico from all over North America for a ten-days vacation together, Wimbush-style.

Here’s what we’re leaving behind…

I’m so excited to bring my children back to the beach and just let them run. It will all be worth the massive effort required to coordinate such a trip for a family of five. Ugh. Toiletries in Ziplock? Not so much, but packing travel snacks is my specialty.

How to eat well and spend less on snacks in transit

Planning a bagged lunch and well-stocked snack ensemble for a day of air travel is slightly more complicated than packing for a trip to the local museum or park. Among the things one has to consider are:

the food’s ability to be transported – It is crumbly? Will it spill or be crushed? Get soggy? None of that sounds like fun.

will the food hold at room temperature for several hours? Warm yogurt? Non merci.

nutritional value – there’s no point in packing empty calories; you can find those in any vending machine.

Travel can be draining, so we want to eat well, i.e., wholesome, nourishing foods. Packing food yourself ensures that you do just that. Instead of limiting yourself to the selection of fast food joints in the airport terminal, your choices begin before you taxi to the airport – in your own pantry and refrigerator.

The ‘spend less’ part comes into play when food is homemade. Stocking up on organic crackers, granola bars, cookies and other treats at the local Whole Foods is going to cost you a bundle; not as much as at the airport, granted, but costly nevertheless.

I’ve already talked about how homemade substitutes for pantry staples can be cost effective and the same goes for travel snacks. A few dozen hearty homemade cookies or a Tupperware of addicting fruit & nut crisps can be made at a fraction of the cost of buying them, plus, you can customize them to suit the family’s tastes. A bonus when some of the travelers are, ahem, selective eaters.

Food should be friendly for little hands, easy to eat, not messy, smelly (no eggs, ugh.) crumbly, or sticky. It should not require utensils, cutting, assembling or much preparation. We’re traveling with small children, let’s keep it simple. Trail mix, raw vegetables, muffins, firm fruit, and wraps with chicken and cheese are all good options for us, as are today’s cereal bars.

These chocolate-oat cereal bars are adapted from The Homemade Pantry, a cookbook I recently featured which knows it’s way around the granola bar. They come together really quickly, require no baking, and are absolutely addicting.

I have to say, my kids were most impressed with my pan of cereal bars. The addition of mini chocolate chips makes them similar to the store bought version, but with way less sugar and preservatives.

In my version, I’ve also left out the nuts entirely and upped the puffed rice cereal and the sunflower seeds, so Noah has been able to take them for a school treat. I found the recipe to be quite adaptable, so have fun customizing them to your taste.

These cereal bars make a terrific travel snack – for the car or a flight; I’m feeling pretty good about having a stash of them in the freezer, ready to grab on our way out the door.

Chocolate-Oat Cereal Bars

Original recipe by Alana from The Homemade Pantry cookbook, these are grab-and go granola bars that the whole family will love. They are stirred together in just a few minutes and require no baking. Make-ahead and freeze for instant snacks on hand.

Do you pack a favorite snack when you travel or brave the airport/truck stop fare?

About Aimee

Cooking has always been Aimée's preferred recreational activity, creative outlet, and source of relaxation. After nearly ten years in the professional cooking industry, she went from restaurant to RSS by trading her tongs and clogs for cookie cutters and a laptop, serving as editor here at Simple Bites. Her first book, Brown Eggs and Jam Jars - Family Recipes from the Kitchen of Simple Bites, was published in February 2015.

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Comments

YAY – SO excited for you Aimée – I can’t wait to see pics from your trip. Enjoy! A question about the recipe. I made a VERY similar recipe last night using honey instead of brown rice syrup but when I poured the honey/oil/sugar mix on the dry ingredients, the chocolate chips melted. Not a BAD outcome but not what I was wanting. Your chips look intact – how did you manage that?

I did let it cool a bit before I poured, MArdi. Though I thought that if the chips melted, they would help bind the bars further. Once the bars were pressed down, I scattered a handful of the mini’s over the top and pressed them in. There were only a few left in the bag and I wanted to use them up. Wonder if I should add that to the recipe now? It was kind of an afterthought…. So this method worked well with honey? Tons of ppl are asking for a sub for the brown rice syrup….can you get back to me on that, please? Merci. xo

Thanks Aimée – that makes sense. Yes the honey worked well but I baked my bars for 45 minutes at 275˚F so it’s a little more work maybe than yours. I think with honey they would need to be baked to bind? I’ll definitely post my version soon (and link to this) but mine was a combo of oil, honey and a tiny bit of brown sugar.

Ahh, I’m so jealous that you’re heading South into the warmth!! I need/want to get away too 🙂 I love that these are homemade granola bars instead of the prepackaged/processed ones. You can choose what YOU want in them and they’re loads healthier!! Have fun, Aimee! xoox

these are so perfect for traveling!! and anything with chocolate puffed cereal is so my jam!! I’m with ya on packing food for the airport – all the food there is so heavy and salty you just end up feeling icky once you get on the plane!

I don’t travel that much, but my husband does. So before he leaves for a conference, I try to give him some granola bars to take along. He is usually so busy that he misses a meal or two at some point during the intense days of sessions and networking.

And then there’s the cost savings, as you pointed out. Airports and downtown restaurants are rather expensive options, and he appreciates not being be forced into buying overpriced food!

I’ll have to try these. They look delish! My favorite travel snack would be my almond/pb granola bars but I do adore your honey oat cookies w/ candy coated sesame seeds. Those are top notch as well! Have a wonderful vacation.

I love that this recipe is nut-free! I have the hardest time finding nut-free seeds though, as many of them contain traces of nuts. Buying in bulk is a no-no for this reason. Any advice for where to go in Montreal?

I’m excited to try these. I’ve been using a recipe that I love from Kitchen Simplicity but it’s a little different from this one. It uses honey, brown sugar, and molassas (which I love) but it’s almost too sweet. I added in brown rice krispies to make them a little less dense. I’ll try your recipe soon because I have two doula clients due in the next few weeks and I need some good easy snacks on hand that I can grab when they’re in labor. Have a wonderful vacation!

We’re lucky that Newark airport recently got a deli that features pretty healthy stuff – I love the dehydrated fruit crisps they keep in stock. Trail mix is a must for us when traveling, and I always grab raw carrots and celery to take with. After once being stuck on a plane for hours and hours with only a bottle of water to sustain me, I now OVERPACK the snack situation, because I never want to experience that again. Hunger only made the “trapped” feeling worse. Have an absolute blast on your trip, friend! Can’t wait to hear all about it when you return. Oh, and just FYI – I can’t hear the word snacks anymore without an image of Mateo’s smiling face flashing through my brain. Hehe.

Thanks for the awesome recipe! My 4-year old has been wanting them for breakfast and snack now every day! We tried a couple of variations that worked out well–we couldn’t find brown rice syrup at the store so we used part honey, part maple syrup and they taste delicious, but are a wee bit crumbly. I also added dried cherries and sliced almonds to one batch and they are amazing! I would love to try a peanut butter chocolate chip version but am not sure how or when to incorporate the peanut butter…any ideas? Thanks so much!

I couldn’t find the brown rice syrup, so I substituted with a maple syrup that turned out to not be real maple syrup- the first ingredient listed was brown rice syrup! But the bars were still very crumbly, more like granola for yogurt than for bars. What do you think, more syrup mixture next time? Or what else could I add to bind them?

Hi Aimee, I just put these in the refrigerator. I didn’t have brown rice syrup, either, so subbed half honey, half molasses. I also wanted the nuts, so took out a cup of the rice cereal and added chopped walnuts. (I also added 3 drops of stevia b/c I was afraid the molasses wouldn’t be sweet enough.) Because you liked the chocolate chips on top, I ended up reserving 1/4c. of the choc chips for after I put it in the pan…we’ll see how it all turns out! Thank you (and Alana) for the recipe!

Hi! I am going to Florida in a few days and decided to google ideas for snacks for the plane etc… and came upon your site. I made this recipe tonight and must say it was a hit with the kids, and myself! I am super glad I found this, it is just what I was looking for, thank you 🙂

I substituted agave amber for the rice syrup but these were way too sweet and I could never get them to firm up idea is great, but I agree mine turned out like granoal for yogurt but sticky…and they needed something to break the sweetness (like an unsweeted greek yogurt)…

I just tried these and loved the flavors, but couldn’t get them to bind well. I used half honey and half brown sugar for the brown rice syrup. Not enough liquid maybe? They are so tasty and delightfully crunchy I’d like to try again with corn syrup as mentioned above. And i do think bars of this type always end up half crumbled into the car seat or stroller no matter what you do. Thanks for the recipe!

Reporting in that I finally got around to making these and I used agave syrup (couldn’t find brown rice syrup) in place of the brown rice syrup and the taste was spot on, in my opinion, but they didn’t bind and we ended up eating it like granola with milk on it. Seriously love, though and will keep the recipe around even if we don’t use it in bar format.

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I'm Aimée, and this blog is devoted to family focused food. This is an encouraging community that offers comprehensive recipes, simple preserving tutorials, and honest tips for cooking with kids. This is our family food life. Join us! Read more...